On October 19, 1975, the Cincinnati Bengals beat the Oakland Raiders, 14-10. They did not get any help from their quarterback. Ken Anderson, generally one of the best at his position in the 1970s and early 1980s, fell off his perch in this one, completing just four of 19 passes for 75 yards, no touchdowns, and four interceptions.
His passer rating in this “win?” 3.9.
One of the reasons the Bengals were able to win was the, um, efforts of Raiders quarterback Ken Stabler, a deserving Hall of Famer. But not on this day. Stabler completed just eight of 24 passes for 113 yards, no touchdowns, four picks, and a passer rating of 9.9. This game was perhaps the worst in NFL history between one quarterback who’s in Canton and another who deserves to be.
Here’s the question: Does Anderson deserve a quarterback win added to his statistical toolbox for this debacle? Of course he doesn’t. The quarterback win is misrepresentative at best and downright dishonest at worst. Football is a team game, obviously. Everyone contributes to glory or embarrassment, and to put the “win” on one player is ridiculous.
To turn the quarterback win thing on its head, let’s look at the case of Eli Manning against the New Orleans Saints on Nov. 1, 2015. In that game, Manning completed 30 of 41 passes for 351 yards, six touchdowns, no interceptions and a passer rating of 138.2. But Manning lost, primarily because Drew Brees threw seven touchdown passes to Manning’s six in a 52-49 barnburner decided by a New Orleans field goal as time expired. Is that Manning’s fault? Does he deserve a loss in his win-loss column? Of course he doesn’t, because quarterbacks shouldn’t have a win-loss column in the first place. But there it is, perhaps the best loss by a quarterback in NFL history.
If you’re still not convinced, I give you the 11 worst winning performances by quarterbacks of the new millennium — where a team’s quarterback was dragged kicking and screaming to success and somehow wobbled away with a victory. In each of these games, the quarterback in question was the starter and had at least 15 passing attempts.
11. Brady Quinn, Cleveland Browns, Dec. 20, 2009
The Jerome Harrison game. Quinn was one of the Browns’ many quarterback mistakes before Baker Mayfield. Selected 22nd overall in the 2007 draft out of Notre Dame, he spent just four years in the NFL and threw for 12 touchdowns to 17 interceptions in his career. Two of those interceptions came in this game against the Chiefs, when the Browns won, 41-34, despite Quinn’s horrible day.
Quinn completed 10 of 17 passes for just 66 yards and no touchdowns, for a passer rating of 27.7. He also ran four times for 39 yards, but the real rushing hero of this game was Jerome Harrison, the second-year man who ran the ball 34 times for 286 yards and three touchdowns. Pretty impressive, since Harrison managed just 1,681 rushing yards in his entire NFL career.
10. Jake Delhomme, Carolina Panthers, Oct. 18, 2009
The “Run the ball 48 times because Jake Delhomme is your quarterback” game. Carolina beat the Buccaneers 28-21 in this one with very little assistance from Delhomme, who completed nine of 17 passes for 65 yards, one touchdown and two interceptions. One of those picks was returned 26 yards for a touchdown by Tampa Bay defensive back Tanard Jackson, and that’s about when head coach John Fox decided to take the ball out of his quarterback’s hands — not that Fox generally needed convincing to do such a thing.
With DeAngelo Williams and Jonathan Stewart as their guides, the Panthers ran 48 times for 267 yards and three touchdowns. As Williams later said, “I’m sure everybody in the stadium knew what we were going to do. There were times they had nine in the box, and we were still getting 7 or 8 yards.”
Williams, who had 30 carries for 152 yards and two touchdowns on the ground, also caught two of Delhomme’s passes for 20 more yards. Maybe Williams should have been credited with the win.
9. Michael Vick, Atlanta Falcons, Oct. 24, 2005
The “Who needs passing?” game. The Falcons of the mid-2000s were one of the most dynamic rushing teams in NFL history, leading the league in rushing yards in 2004, 2005 and 2006 behind the dynamic trio of Vick and running backs Warrick Dunn and T.J. Duckett. Vick wasn’t a developed passer at this point — that didn’t really happen until his comeback with the Eagles — but the rushing attack was good enough.
It certainly was in Atlanta’s 27-14 win over the Jets on this day, when the Falcons ran the ball 38 times for 205 yards and two touchdowns. Vick ran for both of those touchdowns — two 1-yarders — but completed just 11 of 26 passes for 116 yards, no touchdowns and three interceptions. It helped that the Jets countered with Brooks Bollinger and Vinny Testaverde, who combined for no touchdowns and an interception on 38 passing attempts. The 41-year-old Testaverde also fumbled three times in the first half. He had come out of retirement after Chad Pennington and Jay Fiedler, the Jets’ top two quarterbacks, were injured.
8. Jake Plummer, Denver Broncos, Sept. 7, 2003
The Clinton Portis game. Denver’s running back was the 2002 Offensive Rookie of the Year, and he was out to prove that he was no fluke in this one. He had to, because Plummer was all over the place. While Portis ran 24 times for 120 yards and two touchdowns, Plummer — who had signed a seven-year contract with the Broncos in the offseason — completed 12 of 25 passes for 115 yards, no touchdowns and three interceptions. The 30-10 win was far more about Portis blowing up Cincinnati’s inexplicable decision to run a base nickel defense than anything Plummer had to contribute.
Bengals quarterback Jon Kitna also helped the Broncos out with two interceptions and two fumbles, and Denver’s front office must have been wondering what it got itself into. Plummer wound up playing decently enough for the Broncos over four seasons, but his debut was about as inauspicious as it gets.
7. Christian Ponder, Minnesota Vikings, Oct. 21, 2012
The Adrian Peterson game. The Vikings whiffed heavily in their attempt to replace Brett Favre by selecting Ponder with the 12th pick in the 2011 draft — he was above average in just one of his four NFL seasons. That was the 2012 season, when the Florida State alum threw for 2,935 yards, 18 touchdowns and 12 interceptions, but this 21-14 win over the Cardinals didn’t help Ponder at all.
While Adrian Peterson was doing Adrian Peterson things to the tune of 23 carries for 153 yards and a touchdown, and Percy Harvin went against type by being a relatively productive receiver, Ponder managed just eight completions in 17 attempts for 58 yards, a 3.4 yards-per-attempt average, the one touchdown to Harvin and two picks. Ponder was outdueled by Cardinals starter John Skelton, who completed 25 of 36 passes for 262 yards, one touchdown and one interception. Vikings safety Harrison Smith, then a rookie, returned Skelton’s interception for a 31-yard touchdown and the deciding score.
A very grateful Ponder did manage to put a positive spin on things after the game, though.
“To win an ugly game like this is huge. That shows how good of a team we are,” he said.
Indeed. Good enough to win in spite of their quarterback.
6. Mark Sanchez, New York Jets, Dec. 2, 2012
The Greg McElroy game. The Jets selected Sanchez fifth overall in the 2009 draft, thinking he was the guy who was going to take them over the top. It didn’t happen, as Gang Green fell short in the AFC championship game in Sanchez’s first two seasons despite great running games and top-notch defenses. Sanchez started regressing after a 2011 season in which he threw 26 touchdown passes, and the introduction via trade of Tim Tebow in 2012 didn’t help from a distraction standpoint.
However, Tebow wasn’t available for this 7-6 stinker over the Cardinals, in which Sanchez completed just 10 of 21 passes for 97 yards, no touchdowns and three interceptions. Two of the picks were thrown to safety Kerry Rhodes, who the Jets had traded after the 2009 season. Head coach Rex Ryan called Rhodes “selfish” in his 2011 autobiography, “Play Like You Mean It.” So, with nothing to lose and Tebow on the bench with broken ribs, the Jets turned to Greg McElroy, a second-year seventh-rounder to pull them out of the muck.
“It’s just something that I sensed, that I felt,” Ryan said after the game. “When you’re around this game long enough, you get that feeling that, `You know what? I’ve seen enough, and it’s time to make that change.”
That’s a nice way of putting it. McElroy managed a 1-yard touchdown pass to tight end Jeff Cumberland — the only touchdown he threw for in his brief NFL career. Cardinals quarterback Ryan Lindley wasn’t any better than Sanchez, which helped the Jets. Lindley completed 10 of 31 passes for 72 yards and a pick, and the Cardinals went 0-for-15 on third down.
5. Derek Anderson, Cleveland Browns, Oct. 11, 2009
The 15.1% game. We’re still not sure how the Browns came out of this game on the right side of a 6-3 score — this is one of those games neither team deserved to win. Bills quarterback Trent Edwards completed 15 of 31 passes for 152 yards, no touchdowns and one interception, and he looked like an unholy combination of Tom Brady and Peyton Manning compared to Browns quarterback Derek Anderson, who completed … wait for it …
… TWO OF 17 PASSES …
… for 23 yards, no touchdowns and one interception. It was the first time a winning team was “led” by a quarterback completing just two passes since the legendary Akili Smith did it on nine attempts for the Bengals against the Broncos in 2000, when Cincinnati had 407 rushing yards. The Browns got 171 rushing yards on 41 attempts in this mess of a game, but the real hero of this game was Cleveland punter Dave Zastudil, who banged seven of his nine punts inside the Bills’ 20-yard line. Buffalo further assisted Anderson’s efforts by adding nine false start penalties to the picture.
4. Mitchell Trubisky, Chicago Bears, Dec. 9, 2018
The “There but for the grace of Jared Goff” game. The Bears are the patron saints of the new millennium when it comes to miraculously extracting victory from abysmal quarterback performances, so it’s no surprise that the top four games on our list belong to them. For the most part, Chicago was able to survive a string of awful signal-callers in the Lovie Smith era because of transcendent defenses and special teams. But in this 15-6 win over the Rams, which came in the first year of Matt Nagy’s tenure as the team’s head coach, it was the other quarterback who put forth an even more pathetic effort.
Second-year Bears quarterback Mitchell Trubisky had little to smile about as he completed 16 of 30 passes for 130 yards, one touchdown and three interceptions. But Jared Goff was even worse for the eventual NFC champs, completing 20 of 44 passes for 180 yards, no touchdowns and four picks.
Sometimes, when you’re having a bad day at quarterback, the only thing you need in your formula for victory is another quarterback to have an even worse outing.
3. Todd Collins, Chicago Bears, Oct. 10, 2010
The Matt Forte game. If you look up “journeyman quarterback” in the dictionary, you’re likely to see a picture of Collins, who played from 1995 through 2010 with four different teams and never threw more than 12 touchdown passes in a season. Collins was the starter in this 23-6 win over the Panthers because Jay Cutler was dealing with a concussion, and he was replaced by Caleb Hanie in the fourth quarter. It was Collins’ first start since 2007, and he was just as rusty as you’d expect, completing six of 16 passes for 32 yards (that’s a 2.0 yards-per-attempt average), no touchdowns and four interceptions.
How were the Bears able to pull this win off? Well, the Panthers responded to Chicago’s quarterback ineptitude with the combination of Jimmy Clausen and Matt Moore completing 14 of 32 passes for 62 yards, no touchdowns and three interceptions, and former Panthers defensive end Julius Peppers made an acrobatic play to pick off one of Clausen’s throws. Running back Matt Forte was the primary factor, rushing for 166 yards and scoring two touchdowns.
Trubisky and Collins may have been impressive when it came to historically undeserved quarterback wins. But there is only one king of this particular subject, and his name is Rex Grossman.
2. Rex Grossman, Chicago Bears, Dec. 3, 2006
The “Thank you, Brad Johnson” game. Fasten your seatbelts, kids. Sexy Rexy is your pilot for the rest of this flight, and the ultimate NSFW quarterback had two amazingly bad games that somehow ended in victory in the 2006 season alone. This 23-13 win over the Vikings is a fine runner-up, as Grossman completed six of 19 passes for 34 yards, no touchdowns, three interceptions and a passer rating of 1.3 in Chicago’s winter weather. No other quarterback with a rating that low has won a game in the 2000s, and only three (Gary Cuozzo in 1971, Don Gault in 1970 and Jim Hart in 1968) have done it with worse ratings since 1950.
So … how did this particular weirdness happen? Vikings quarterback Brad Johnson nearly matched Grossman’s poor play with 11 completions in 26 attempts for 73 touchdowns, no interceptions and a passer rating of 10.3. That helped. Cornerback Ricky Manning Jr. returned one of Johnson’s interceptions 54 yards for a touchdown. That also helped. Devin Hester scored on a 45-yard punt return, and Cedric Benson had a 24-yard touchdown run in a game where he gained 60 yards on just nine carries. That also helped.
But in the end, we can only really attribute this oddity to the Rex Grossman Effect, a phenomenon one other team had already experienced in the 2006 season.
1. Rex Grossman, Chicago Bears, Oct. 16, 2006
The “They are who we thought they were!” game, and which game would be No. 1 but this?
“I’ve never played so bad and won a game like that,” Grossman said after Chicago’s 24-23 win over the Cardinals, and he was right. “It was unbelievable.”
He was also right about that. Down 20-0 at the half on “Monday Night Football,” the Bears scooted past their abysmal quarterback and made an amazing comeback despite Grossman’s 14 completions in 37 attempts, 144 yards, no touchdowns, four interceptions, two lost fumbles and a passer rating of 10.2.
The Bears were led again by special teams and defense. Mike Brown returned a Matt Leinart fumble for a 3-yard touchdown. Charles Tillman returned an Edgerrin James fumble 40 yards for another touchdown. Devin Hester returned a punt 83 yards for a touchdown. And when Cardinals kicker Neil Rackers missed a 41-yard field goal with 58 seconds left, that was that.
Which, of course, led to the greatest postgame meltdown by a head coach in the history of postgame meltdowns by a head coach. Take it away, Dennis Green …
We understand your frustration, coach. Nothing worse than losing to a bad quarterback who can’t get out of his own way, especially when your team keeps clearing the path.
